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The basic re­quire­ment of ob­tain­ing tax-ex­empt sta­tus is that the or­ga­ni­za­tion is specif­i­cally lim­ited in pow­ers to pur­poses that the IRS clas­si­fies as tax-ex­empt pur­poses. Un­like for-profit cor­po­ra­tions that ben­e­fit from broad and gen­eral pur­poses, non-profit or­ga­ni­za­tions need to be lim­ited in pow­ers to func­tion with tax-ex­empt sta­tus, but a non-profit cor­po­ra­tion is by de­fault not lim­ited in pow­ers until it specif­i­cally lim­its it­self in the ar­ti­cles of in­cor­po­ra­tion or non­profit cor­po­rate by­laws. This lim­it­ing of the pow­ers is cru­cial to ob­tain­ing tax ex­empt sta­tus with the IRS and then on the state level. Or­ga­ni­za­tions ac­quire 501(c)(3) tax ex­emp­tion by fil­ing IRS Form 1023. As of 2006[update] the form must be ac­com­pa­nied by a $850 fil­ing fee if the yearly gross re­ceipts for the or­ga­ni­za­tion are ex­pected to av­er­age $10,000 or more. If yearly gross re­ceipts are ex­pected to av­er­age less than $10...

In­di­vid­ual may take a tax de­duc­tion on a char­i­ta­ble gift to a 501(c)(3) or­ga­ni­za­tion that is or­ga­nized and op­er­ated ex­clu­sively for re­li­gious, char­i­ta­ble, sci­en­tific, lit­er­ary, or ed­u­ca­tional pur­poses, or to fos­ter na­tional or in­ter­na­tional am­a­teur sports com­pe­ti­tion (but only if no part of its ac­tiv­i­ties in­volve the pro­vi­sion of ath­letic fa­cil­i­ties or equip­ment), or for the pre­ven­tion of cru­elty to chil­dren or animals. An in­di­vid­ual may not take a tax de­duc­tion on gifts made to a 501(c)(3) or­ga­ni­za­tion that is or­ga­nized and op­er­ated ex­clu­sively for the test­ing for pub­lic safety. In the case of tu­ition fees paid to a pri­vate 501(c)(3) school or a church school, the pay­ments are not tax-de­ductible char­i­ta­ble con­tri­bu­tions be­cause they are pay­ments for ser­vices ren­dered to the payee or the payee's children. The pay­ments are not tax-de­ductible char­i­ta­ble con­tri­bu­tions even if a sig­nif­i­cant...

All 501(c)(3) or­ga­ni­za­tions must make avail­able for pub­lic in­spec­tion its ap­pli­ca­tion for tax-ex­emp­tion, in­clud­ing its Form 1023 or Form 1023-EZ and any at­tach­ments, sup­port­ing doc­u­ments, and fol­low-up cor­re­spon­dence with the In­ter­nal Rev­enue Service. The same pub­lic in­spec­tion re­quire­ment ap­plies to the or­ga­ni­za­tion's an­nual re­turn, namely its Form 990, Form 990-EZ, Form 990-PF, Form 990-T, and Form 1065, in­clud­ing any at­tach­ments, sup­port­ing doc­u­ments, and fol­low-up cor­re­spon­dence with the In­ter­nal Rev­enue Ser­vice, with the ex­cep­tion of the names and ad­dresses of donors on Sched­ule B.An­nual re­turns must be made pub­licly avail­able for a three-year pe­riod be­gin­ning with the due date of the re­turn in­clud­ing any ex­ten­sion of time for filing. The In­ter­nal Rev­enue Ser­vice pro­vides in­for­ma­tion about spe­cific 501(c)(3) or­ga­ni­za­tions through its Tax Ex­empt Or­ga­ni­za­tion Search online. A pri­vate non­pr...

Sec­tion 501(c)(3) or­ga­ni­za­tions are pro­hib­ited from sup­port­ing po­lit­i­cal can­di­dates, as a re­sult of the John­son Amend­ment en­acted in 1954. Sec­tion 501(c)(3) or­ga­ni­za­tions are sub­ject to lim­its on lob­by­ing, hav­ing a choice be­tween two sets of rules es­tab­lish­ing an upper bound for their lob­by­ing ac­tiv­i­ties. Sec­tion 501(c)(3) or­ga­ni­za­tions risk loss of their tax-ex­empt sta­tus if these rules are violated.An or­ga­ni­za­tion that loses its 501(c)(3) sta­tus due to being en­gaged in po­lit­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ties can­not sub­se­quently qual­ify for 501(c)(3) status.

Churches must meet spe­cific re­quire­ments to ob­tain and main­tain tax-ex­empt sta­tus; these are out­lined in "IRS Pub­li­ca­tion 1828: Tax Guide for Churches and Re­li­gious Organizations".This guide out­lines ac­tiv­i­ties al­lowed and not al­lowed by churches under the 501(c)(3) designation. In 1980, the United States Dis­trict Court for the Dis­trict of Co­lum­biarec­og­nized a 14-part test in de­ter­min­ing whether a re­li­gious or­ga­ni­za­tion is con­sid­ered a church for pur­poses of the In­ter­nal Rev­enue Code. Hav­ing an es­tab­lished con­gre­ga­tion served by an or­ga­nized min­istry is of cen­tral importance. Points 4, 6, 8, 11, 12, and 13 are also es­pe­cially im­por­tant. Nev­er­the­less, the 14-point list is a guide­line, it is not in­tended to be all-en­com­pass­ing, and other rel­e­vant facts and cir­cum­stances may be factors. Al­though there is no de­fin­i­tive de­f­i­n­i­tion of a church for In­ter­nal Rev­enue Code pur­poses, in 1986 the United States Tax Co...

Or­ga­ni­za­tions de­scribed in sec­tion 501(c)(3) are pro­hib­ited from con­duct­ing po­lit­i­cal cam­paign ac­tiv­i­ties to in­ter­vene in elec­tions to pub­lic office.The In­ter­nal Rev­enue Ser­vice web­site elab­o­rates on this prohibition:

In con­trast to the pro­hi­bi­tion on po­lit­i­cal cam­paign in­ter­ven­tions by all sec­tion 501(c)(3) or­ga­ni­za­tions, pub­lic char­i­ties (but not pri­vate foun­da­tions) may con­duct a lim­ited amount of lob­by­ingto in­flu­ence leg­is­la­tion. Al­though the law states that "no sub­stan­tial part" of a pub­lic char­ity's ac­tiv­i­ties can go to lob­by­ing, char­i­ties with large bud­gets may law­fully ex­pend a mil­lion dol­lars (under the "ex­pen­di­ture" test), or more (under the "sub­stan­tial part" test) per year on lobbying. The In­ter­nal Rev­enue Ser­vice has never de­fined the term "sub­stan­tial part" with re­spect to lobbying. To es­tab­lish a safe har­bor for the "sub­stan­tial part" test, the United States Con­gress en­acted §501(h), called the Conable elec­tion after its au­thor, Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Bar­ber Conable. The sec­tion es­tab­lishes lim­its based on op­er­at­ing bud­get that a char­ity can use to de­ter­mine if it meets the sub­stan­tial test. This change...

A 501(c)(3) or­ga­ni­za­tion is al­lowed to con­duct some or all of its char­i­ta­ble ac­tiv­i­ties out­side the United States. A 501(c)(3) or­ga­ni­za­tion is al­lowed to award grants to for­eign char­i­ta­ble or­ga­ni­za­tions if the grants are in­tended for char­i­ta­ble pur­poses and the grant funds are sub­ject to the 501(c)(3) or­ga­ni­za­tion's control. Ad­di­tional pro­ce­dures are re­quired of 501(c)(3) or­ga­ni­za­tions that are pri­vate foun­da­tions.